Let’s see…
20 gauge full choke Remington 870 Wingmaster, from sometime in the mid-60s, or at any rate before the interchangeable chokes came out.
12 gauge Stevens 620 pump. This thing is an ancient, well-worn shotgun.
Took the Charles Daly (Miroku) out for the first time, hit a 77, which is clearly better than the 55 I’d been doing with the 20ga. Amazing what a good gun does. Now I just need more practice.
A note: Charles Daly was, mostly, an importer. The gun I have is a import from Japan, from '73, the year before they stopped doing it. The recent ones are kind of cheap. August West’s one is probably one of those.
I bought a Winchester Model 12, 12 gauge. The serial number shows it was made in 1929. I like it. I can break clays at 50 yards out with no problems. It’s in pretty good condition.
I bought the Winchester, a Mossberg bolt action .22 Model 21 made in 1932 or 1933, and a Ted Williams Sears 20 gauge. Nice package deal.
Surbey has a Remington 870 Wingmaster 12 gauge.
Nearby is a nice outdoor pistol/rifle/shotgun range. They have clay throwers that you can use for the shiotguns. For only $4 for all day or all the ammo you can shoot.
We go out and shoot up a box of clays. I’m not much of a hunter, but I like trap shooting.
The Remington has a nice feel to it, but I like the Winchester better just for the coolativity factor.
Savage 12 gauge single shot
Remington 12 gauge pump
Fox 12 gauge side by side that my grandfather left me in his will
Harrington and Richardson 28 gauge (best squirrel or rabbit gun ever just enough to knock them down but doesn’t tear them up)
Remington 20 gauge side by side
It’s interesting to see how many people out there have shotguns in “odd” calibres- around here, shotguns come in two calibres: 12 gauge and .410.
You’ll occasionally see an old 16 gauge or a 20 gauge floating about (some of the skeet shooters like them), but as a general rule I’d estimate 99% of shotguns in Australia are either .410s or 12ga.
How do those of you with “odd” calibre shotguns find ammo for them- do sporting good shops in the US carry a wider range of ammo than they do here?
Wal-Mart carries 20ga, here. Forget sporting goods stores. $16 a brick of 100.
12 gauge and 20 gauge are the most common here in the states, .410 bore would be next probably, then 16 ga. and 10 ga.
I know a lot of duck hunters that converted to a 16ga, and 10 gauges are usually long-barreled goose guns.
Heh, the irony.
I inherited my grandad’s Remmington Browning 12 ga. auto when I was 10 and used it for pretty much everything, growing up. Still my favorite as it’s that wonderful marriage of beauty, functionality and durability.
Over the years I’ve had and gotton rid of a few. Remmington 1100, a Spanish trap and some others because there were things about them that just weren’t right. I’ve shot a lot of others, both from work and play, that were good guns but too rigid in their scope to suit my needs; Winchester pump comes to mind.
The latest I bought was a 12 ga. Baretta auto and it’s about the sweetest shooter I ever could have imagined. Love that one dearly.
Also fell in love with a Baretta 20 over and under running about 1200 shells a day dove hunting in Argentina. Fast, light, dependable and accurate, I think my wife needs that one for Christmas. If she’ll let me buy her that, I’ll let her buy me a nice vacuum cleaner.
As for the “odd” gauages, I saw a great review of the H&R 28 gauge in Sports Afield when I was in high school and since I was doing alot of squirrel and rabbit hunting (Floyd the Dog was the best rabbit hound anywhere - may he rest in peace) I asked my folks for the gun as an Xmas present. Santa was good that year.
I have no problem getting shells for it, but I’m almost always asked the same question “You realize these are for a 28 gauage gun don’t you?” “Yes, that why I came here - to get 28 gauge shotgun shells.”
Let me think…
I have a Beretta 686x trap, the older one without any graphics on the receiver. It has a fully adjustable butt pad and comb, as well as two barrel sets, one single, one double. It’s a great gun, but very long and heavy for hunting.
I also have a 28 gauge Beretta Silver Pigeon, which is great for quail and doves. I love this gun.
I have a Browning Superposed in 12 for pheasant and sporting clays. It isn’t a fancy grade, but it is a true Belgian Browning, before they started making them in Japan.
I have a 12 gauge, single barrel Ithaca trap gun, which I believe is made in the 1930s. It has a highly customized stock (the old English grip converted to a fat pistol grip and a huge built in cheek piece added) I got it on the cheap, probably because the modifications to what many regard as a classic would make some purists sick. It has a mammoth 35 inch barrel and no safety, as it was designed strictly as a target gun.
I also have a Walther shotgun in 16 gauge. It is choked pretty tight, so I might have it bored out. I got it on the cheap at a small town auction. I think some GI probably saved it from being melted down and smuggled it home.
Oh, and as to the “odd” gauge thing in the States. 28 gauges are very popular, in my circle at least, for quail and doves.
People like them because they are light to carry, and quite a bit more sporting, in the eyes of some. Further, they don’t tear up small birds, and have almost no recoil for high volume shooting in places like Argentina, where some pros have been known to shoot 5000 birds in a day :eek:.
16 gauges are rare, but I have no trouble getting ammo for them. I am the only person I know that has one (which I kind of stumbled upon, see above) Most shooters have heard of them, and think of them as vaguely Northern European.
That is interesting that the .410 is so popular in Australia. Around here, the .410 is used mostly to kill rattlesnakes and by old timers who want to show off.
It’s mainly used here on snakes (there are rather a lot of them in Australia), foxes, hares, and other small game encountered at short range. They’re also good for kids to learn to shoot shotguns with, too.
In New Zealand, people used to saw them off to make “Kea Guns”, which were designed to for dissuading Kea from destroying one’s expensive camping gear whilst out in the bush.
The Kea is (rightly) protected now, but until 1986 they were regarded as pests (many still see them as such) and no-one saw any particular problem with people shooting them. Then again, they said the same thing about the Passenger Pigeon back in the 18th and 19th centuries…
I used to have a Valmet, (now Tika) with swappable barrel sets. I had twin 12 gauges and then a 12 gauge over a .222. That was a nice ass gun. It had a removable scope mount that you could take on and off in a second, and it still would be sited in perfectly.
The way it was designed you could use either the scope or the iron site simultaneously. So, for example, you are trying to shoot a varmint. You aim with the scope and shoot the .222 but you miss and he takes off. You switch down to iron sights and unload a pumpkin ball or a heavy game load at him. They made all different kinds of barrel sets for different purposes.
Real nice gun. Nice balance, it just lifted and fired cleanly.
Sold it, though.
Mostly, I just shoot my AA12 (warning - Youtube link) to take care of rabbits and small birds.
Ok, no I don’t. My Special Forces brother just told me about those the other day and I’m infatuated with a fully automatic shotgun.
Really I have an ancient Parker side by side that was my great grandfathers and just sits in a case under the bed and I have a Remington 1100 that my dad won as a door prize at a Ducks Unlimited outing. I’ve had others, but I’m really not a big shotgun guy.
August? Skip? Again, August has a model 311 with synthetic stock. Skip has a 5100 or 311, probably a 311, with a missing plate.
Dammit, I was gonna post about the AA-12. :mad:
My only good shotgun story - I was 20 or so, out shooting clay pigeons with a few great-uncles. Even then I wasn’t much into shotguns so I had to borrow one from them. Being friendly types, they loaned me a 20 gauge and I proceeded to do pretty darn good for a rookie. I then made a near-fatal mistake - I asked if they had something a little bigger I could try, since the 20 was too easy :rolleyes:
Beginners luck should have been been enough for me, but swollen with pride I didn’t really notice the size of the bore. I did comment on the obvious age and remarkably fine condition. I then casually raised the thing to my shoulder, called “pull” and, resting my head on the ground, immediately wondered how that train managed to hit me and why I was able to rest my head on the ground.
Yeah, the old codgers slipped me an 8 gauge.
Those (the 8) are kind of rare, but I’ve seen 10, 12, 16, 20, 28, and .410 pretty much everywhere. 12 and 20 are probably the most common, IMHO.
Me da used to get sent out in the field when he was bout 6, with an 8 gauge ‘punt gun’, to scare the crows.
BANG!
Check this beast out.
4 bore, rifle and shotgun barrels included all for the low, low pirce of $35,000.
A late entry here, but I also have to recommend the Mossberg 500 for a beginner. You can buy different barrels, and make it a longer/shorter shotgun, or get a slug barrel, and have a nice sluggun for deer season.
A million other modifications also exist, as it’s a wildely available gun. Good used ones are available in nearly every gun shop, at a great price.
I have one with a long ribbed barrel for shooting trap, and though it’s not as ‘pretty’ as the beautiful over/unders that come out to shoot on Sunday morning, it hits just as many clays as some of those guys do. Occasionally, I short stroke a round, but it’s usually good for a chuckle on the range with the guys… (I’m not a serious trap shooter, but it’s a lot of fun!)
For deer, I use a Smith 916A 12ga, with a riot barrel. (Was an old cop gun) it’s just long enough to be legal, and works great out to 50 yards or so with a 1oz slug. In the thick woods of southern NH, it’s a great gun to take out during deer season. You can only see 30 yards or so anyway. (Southeastern NH is shotguns only for deer)